Friend

Friend (2001) is Kwak Kyung-taek's Korean crime drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Busan in the 1970s. Four boys from wildly different homes — a mob boss's son, a doctor's son, a smuggler's son and the class brain — grow up inseparable, sharing fights and secrets long before life pulls them in opposite directions.

When school ends, the four part ways. Sang-taek and Joong-ho head to university. Joon-seok and Dong-su, the two who were closest as kids, end up in rival Busan gangs, on opposite sides of the same turf war. What started as boyhood loyalty curdles into a blood feud where hurting an old friend cuts deeper than hurting any enemy. Yoo Oh-seong plays Joon-seok and a young Jang Dong-gun plays Dong-su, and their tight-lipped bond carries the whole film.

Kwak drew heavily on his own childhood in Busan, shooting in the local dialect and the grit of a port city across the 70s and 80s. The film sold over eight million tickets at home and stood for years as the highest-grossing Korean release ever made, even turning a few of its lines into everyday slang. It's tough, nostalgic, and clear-eyed about the fact that friendship doesn't always save you. Stream Friend (2001) online on iFILM.